Manufacturer’s £250,000 digital investment pays off

Investing in a digital transformation programme has helped a fabricator of windows, doors, home extensions and conservatory products to bounce back from global supply chain disruption and rising energy prices.

Wakefield-based Conservatory Outlet, which supplies a 27-strong network of home improvement retailers across England and Scotland, is now back at 98.5% “on time in full” (OTIF) for the last four weeks and is aiming to build on this even further over the next six months.

The company has had to manage increased lead times for material and unprecedented demand from customers, who have been benefiting from a massive rise in spending on homes and domestic office spaces.

In response, the business pumped £250,000 into creating a live tracking system in its factory, meaning everyone in the business has real-time information on where a product is in the manufacturing process, starting from initial order through to dispatch.

Led by group head of IT, Craig Schmidt, the digital transformation has also given the business critical information on improved order planning, material use and predictive maintenance on machines, cutting downtime in the process.

Michael Giscombe, managing director, said: “The whole team has worked tirelessly over the last six months to get production back to what we saw prior to Covid-19 with a stable supply chain and full control of the factory.

“This has basically translated into lead times being brought back into what customers would normally expect, despite volumes increasing by 20% since March 2019.

“We had been looking at introducing more digitalisation to the shop floor, but the pandemic accelerated how quickly we did this, and the live tracking manufacturing system has been a real gamechanger for the business, delivering efficiencies we didn’t deem possible six months ago.

“Craig and his IT team have opened our eyes now and this will be the first of many steps along our digital transformation journey.”

The company is also putting all its office team through a product training programme to allow them to better respond to any customer service or product related issues.

And a new training academy for attracting and developing future sales talent is set to be launched shortly and will be rolled out across the firm’s network of retailers.